In 2006 Cedars–Sinai Medical Center (CSMC) with eleven CEE universities and academic organizations from six countries (Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine) formed the Regional Cooperation for Health, Science and Technology (RECOOP HST) Consortium.

In 2012 CSMC converted the Consortium into the Association for Regional Cooperation in the Fields of Health, Science and Technology is registered by the Court of Debrecen in Hungary under the registry number 4160 on May 10, 2012, TAX ID: 18299140-1-09.

Members of the Association composed from 9 countries (Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Romania, Slovak Republic, Ukraine and USA) with 16 higher education or research organizations.

The RECOOP HST Association’s main goal is to enhance research collaboration and provide platforms for scientific networking in life sciences within the Central - Eastern European and Western Balkan Countries. The research priorities of the Association is women's and child’s health, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, neurological disorders and cancer in the Visegrad Four European Macro-Region (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) and the neighboring countries (Belarus, Croatia, Moldova, Macedonia, Romania, and Ukraine). The Association paves the way toward GLOBAL Research Programs of the US Government, the National Institutes of Health, USA, the World Health Organization and private foundations like Gates and Clinton.

The RECOOP HST Association organized the Bridges in Life Sciences 8th Annual Conference, in Prague, Czech Republic on April 5-7, 2013.

The Conference will take place in Hotel ILF Prague, 140 00, Praha 4 – Michle, Budějovická 15/743, Czech Republic, Reception: +420 261 092 333 Fax: +420 261 261 860
E-mail: hotel@hotel-ilf.cz; recepce@hotel-ilf.cz; URL: http://www.hotel-ilf.cz

Sponsored by

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA www.csmc.edu

University of Debrecen, Hungary www.unideb.hu/portal/en

The International Visegrad Fund Strategic Grant (31110035) “Future of Visegrad Four Families Depends on Healthy Women and Children” http://visegradfund.org

University of Pecs, Hungary http://www.pte.hu/

The International Visegrad Fund Standard Grant “Prevention of preterm birth in the Visegrad Group and Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries” ID 21250023 http://visegradfund.org

Center for Experimental Medicine, Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine – IKEM, Prague, Czech Republic http://www.ikem.cz

During the Bridges in Life Sciences Conferences the RECOOP HST Association is reviewing the scientific progress made by 17 CSMC RECOOP Research Centers (CRRC) from 7 countries (Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, and Ukraine) working on translational and clinical research in the field of Genomics - Proteomics, Epigenetics, Metagenomics, Molecular Biology, Metabolomics and Nano-biotechnology. In these research fields the participating CRRCs from the member universities and research organizations implemented research programs for undergraduate and Ph.D Students.

In the RECOOP Life Science Research Platform scientists also review and discuss ongoing research projects, and implement new multidisciplinary, multicenter research studies of the RECOOP Research Networks (Mother and Child Health - M&CH,  Women’s Health and Cardiovascular Diseases -WH&CVD and NanoBioTechnology).

RECOOP Life Science Research Platform already realized short term (1-2 years) pilot research studies. The Networks continue the translational and clinical research studies in midterm (5 years), and the RECOOP HST Life Science Research Platform continues clinical research studies for minimum 20 - 30 years and follow-up the women, men and newborns registered in the Electronic Data Entry Forms (EDEF) started in 2011 ( http://www.flexiform.eu/).

The scientific works of the last three Bridges Conferences were published in the Annual Scientific Review Journal; Biopolymers and Cell ( http://www.biopolymers.org.ua/) 2010. Vol. 26. N 2 & N 2 supplementary; 2011. Vol. 27. N 2 & N 2 Supplementary; 2012. Vol. 28. N 2 supplementary.

In 2012 during the Bridges 7th Annual Conference in Budapest the organizers implemented an interactive program for art and sciences. RECOOP HST Association encouraged their member scientists those have gift in visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography) or performing arts (music, dance, theatre) to demonstrate their talent during the Conference.

Based on the success of the Bridges in Life Sciences 7th Annual Conference the RECOOP HST Association will continue to create Art and Science Platform for the advancement in medicine and the participating scientists beside their scientific presentations will display or perform their artistic achievements.

The Association also invited cartoonists to attend Bridges in Life Sciences 8th Annual Conference and make their artwork on the spot during the Conference. The cartoonists from the Brain Sneezing Group (http://cartooneast.com) will make their artistic presentations based on their impression and understanding of the scientific works presented during the Conference. The cartoons will be displayed and scientists will vote to select the top three cartoonists will get the RECOOP Laughing Scientist Award. The cartoonists also will have chance to evaluate the scientific presentations and posters and they will select the top three young scientists will get the Sneezing Brain Award. 

During the Bridges Conference cartoonists will get basic training of the selected symptoms and after that together with health care professionals they will make caricatures of the symptoms (phenotyping). On this way clinicians and cartoonists start to build a library of caricatures will describe the actual disorders. The Association will combine the caricatures based phenotyping (symptoms) combined with the genetic and laboratory data, and with the collected medical data by questioners.

After the Bridges Conference in the next two years the RECOOP HST Association will organize workshops to build the libraries of symptoms in cartoons during workshops. The cartoonist also will attend summer camps with kids, psychiatrists and physicians are experts of the selected illnesses and will test the method.

After the prove of concept it could be used in The RECOOP Association for the follow up of the diastolic dysfunction of preterm newborns in the Women’s Health CVD Research Network or in the Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection study in the Mother and Child Health Research Network.

Dr. Sandor G. Vari, MD

Director, International Research and

Innovation Management Program

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center &

President of the RECOOP HST Association

Office in the USA:

6420 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 300, Los Angeles,

CA  90048-5502, USA

Office 1: 1 323-866-8122; Mob: 1 818 398-2642; E-mail: vari@cshs.org

Office in Hungary:

Budapest, Szalanci u 5, H-1124

Land line: 36-1-487 – 0430; Mobil: 36 – 30 – 498 – 1827; E-mail: sandor.vari@sbcglobal.net